And the Sound of the Wind on a Pond with No One in It

Two of the four young men
(See how well we can count?)
Strip to their shorts and plunge

In the pond that was ice
Just last week. A few folks
(And now we’ve fudged the count)

Watch from the mud and stone
Slope of the shore that was
Snow and ice just last week.

As is the rule with these
Things (with no name for them),
There are laughs, whoops, and shouts.

It’s key to yell when you
Lunge through the ice-cold waves.
That’s the fun. That’s the point.

Then you dry off and leave
With your friends and your kin.
Leave the pond to the wind.

Like the Wheels of Birds

Half a life gone since,
And not a brief life,
The news is the same,

More or less, as same
As same is—a coup.
Troops in charge crack down

As crowds take the streets.
You talk as if you
Were the words, as if

You would soon fix things,
Could mean to fix you.
You spin like the wheels

Of days, clouds, and birds,
Like sparks from the wheels.
You’re all talk of change,

How to change the ways
Things spin, but the spin
Takes you down the road

And what goes are not
Those turns. So you’ll change
Things? With what? A coup?

O We Are Wild

There’ll be time for worlds
That have no more words.
We seem like gnats now,
A cloud at your ears
That won’t leave you be,

And we buzz and nip
To get sips of sweat,
Skin, and blood from you,
And you can’t get clear
Of us, but we’ll go.

We’ll go soon, leave you,
If you don’t go first.
O, we are wild, so
Wild, you just don’t know.
We’ll fly off to feed

In new worlds we’ve made
In our acts of flight,
The way we made you
When we came to you.
That’s one way we’re not

Like life, not like you.
We make our own way.
We feed from our worlds
We make as these signs
We’re wild here. Let’s eat.

It’s Just War

Ah, you say, what choice have we made?

You are so well-primed to feel shame,

But it needs you to feel you can

Nudge the world, make up your own mind.

It’s a ruse, a trick, like the light

Your brain sees for you, that you’ve learned

Bit by bit, is but a small slice

Through all the waves that run through night.

You sort of know that it’s a trick.

Now and then you push it from you.

There is some shit I will not eat!

But then, in your cell with your pain,

You moan, sad and small all the night,

And you ask, what choice have I made?

Don’t Be So Rude to Our Host

How is it Death likes to keep house
In your mind? House of Dust, Tech Duinn—

House past the sun, house in the ground—
It’s not just farm folk—tells and mounds

Or deep-sea lairs, a cave at least.
How like you to make Death like you,

House-proud, with a hearth, a tool shed
Or a scythe, a horse for horse folk—

King to the folks whose kings are gods,
His throne room with a grand floor plan—

All that stuff—all of it set up
As a good place for Death to live.

Can you not laugh at this? You could
Stop with Death, could you not, not make

Him stop for you, give you that lift
Back to his house? There is no Death,

And you know it, but you don’t like
To think of death with a small d,

You don’t like to die. Why would you?
There you go. There goes the whole world.

It must mean Death keeps house for you.
At the day’s end, then, you don’t go—

That’s not you. You went home. But then,
You make out that Death’s house is grim,

For all the work he did for you.
Have you thought why it’s hard to die,

And has been known to take a while?
It’s just Death is tired, tired of you,

Sick of a house full of you, more
And more each day, guests that won’t leave.

Death does his best to take his time,
Does not show up when the hour strikes,

Lets you wait, all dressed, set to go.
It could be he loathes your foul moods,

Your moans, your gripes his house is dark.
It could be your fault when Death’s slow.

Songs Sing Songs to Songs for Songs

You missed this for a long time.
You sang, and you sang in groups,

And you danced or at least heard,
And you thought of this as you,

To do with you, done for you,
Or for your ghosts and your gods.

To this day, you find it strange
Or wrong, a break with that past,

Those songs that were good and true,
Sung in groups, to read and write

Lone poems with no voice, no bonds
To groups for whom songs are glue.

Poems were chants, meant to be sung,
Meant to be shared, shared by you!

No. Not so. For a long time now,
We’ve sung our songs to our selves,

Not yours, not just yours. Yours
Are more than half ours, are more

Words than cries in the first place.
Here we are, still, in the dark

Or made of light, and we sing,
Sound or not, with all your thoughts.

Guilt and Cats

Is it that they can’t feel guilt,

And so you feel it for them?

That makes no sense. They lived lives

Of the woods, streams, grass, and scrub

Long years since. They are just cats,

A tribe of kinds, coats and size,

All that splits them, to your eyes.

They stalk, kill, and eat warm prey,

Lives not as large, for the most

Part, as they are. They will kill.

They’ll kill well. Lives you don’t want

And lives you want, they want, too.

A cat with a rare bird’s corpse

Is an old soul with a sack

Of ripe, dark plums—They taste good

To her. They taste good to her.

And then they can break your soul

When they go or die, or when

You come to think you’ve no choice

But to kill them, kill some of them,

Kill one of them, try to kill

Such beasts that don’t die so well,

That scratch and yowl, that climb trees,

That twitch and flop in the road

For hours, a burr in your core,

That purr, that try to get out

Of the house, out of the bag,

Off the vet’s desk. They do die,

But they fight it to the end.

Check all the books on the shelves

By folks who lived with cats, killed cats,

And wrote down what it felt like,

Each grim scene of death, of guilt.

To kill a cat is to kill

Or try to kill, your own self,

The part that’s all beast, the part

You most want, need to be dead,

That won’t die just to please you,

That won’t fall off of the cliff,

That leans a bit and then sits,

The lost fiend that could come back.

That part of you is the cat.

The Bridge off the Rim of the World

That you can think things the same,
That you can think of a same,

That there is a thing called same
That you pick out all the time,

This should stun you. It’s all change,
No two points so close they’re one,

And yet you have grown this tool
Like a horn out of your skulls

That helps you dig through the world,
Helps you to turn up the earth,

The same. It is the ur-bridge,
The trope that’s egg to all tropes,

The same. This is one of that.
This day, its own light, its own

And none quite like, is the sort
Of day you know this or that,

Just like those days, just the type,
The same. It’s not the damn same.

The light at dawn’s the new light
That glides down a bridge of names.

Long Thaw

The pond up high shows more sky,
Now it’s lost most of its ice.

Each day that goes by, you lose
One more bit of what’s wrong here

With this world where life means death
But you can’t get to know death

To that day when you can’t know.
So let it go. Each day goes,

And if you’re in it at all
You’re in it in life. Wind blows

No end on the waves, and birds
Call to birds, for birds to hear.

Them, Too

Yes, all words. Yes, these.
Yes, the ones in clay.
Yes, the ones in safes.
Yes, the words you write.
Yes, words cached in mines.

You know this. The words,
We know this, too. Words
Will all be gone, soon,
By the lives of suns,
If not by the likes

Of you. Why words, then,
And why write them, if
They weren’t meant at first
To be pressed in dirt,
But to flee on air,

Once past eyes and ears?
You don’t write us down
To talk to us, save
Us to talk with us,
Though, of course, we do.

You want to reach out
Through us to more souls
In the flesh, like you.
You know you do. We
Know it, too. Ghosts, too.

The Spry Arms of the Wind

If a thought were to come to you
And ask for your help, for a loan,

For a piece of your mind, would you
Ask it who it came from or where

It called home? Bet you would. A thought
That knows what’s good for it won’t tell,

Will look lost, look at you and coo,
Feign a torn wing, mew, ask for mom,

Ask if you’re mom, try to look cute.
A thought’s best chance for a new home

Is a soft fool who thinks it’s new.
Thoughts could teach you a thing or two.

Thoughts are on to you. You want them,
But you want them to be your own.

You do. You’ll try to put a thought
Out of your mind that looks hard used,

If you don’t think you’d like its kin,
If it reeks of the stale, harsh sweat

Of one of those minds from strange lands
That tend to think a lot of filth,

Lands where minds are known to be cruel,
To whip their thoughts, train them to thieve,

Send them off to nice homes like yours
To try to con you, steal your trust.

Thoughts know you don’t want thoughts like those.
Thoughts want to live. They act their best.

If you quiz them too hard on this,
They’ll play way back. They’ll turn to myths

That hold deep truths, then say they flew
In on the spry arms of the wind.

As If It Were Your Past

So for now, it just goes on.
Play a game. Dream you are old

And a young soul’s come to you
To get some wise words. Now think

Of which wise words you’d give them.
Have some fun with it. Waste time.

See the place you’d like to be
(Or right now think you would). See

Just the life to go with age.
Think of the sort of young soul

Who’s a bit of a fool, but
Would hang on your words like gold

Coins as they fall from your lips.
You are wise. You’ve done it right.

Be the best sage you can be.
Write it all down. Good. Do that.

Quick Looks from a Small-Faced World

~ Dense

Clouds, no moon, no stars, no birds
At dawn, no cars, no folks, no

Crime, no wars, no fires, no smoke,
Not here, right now, not on this

Cliff perched on the edge of drought
On a rare day it might rain

~ What Is It in This Day?

The sweet smell of the dull.
Clouds and a chance of rain.
News far off; none up close.

The birds were late to sing.
The moon, old rock, slipped out,
And the sun, old god, rose,

Both the far side of clouds.
There is no cause for this joy,
If not that there’s no cause

For fresh dread, no new pains
Of the flesh, no new wars,
Just the old, an old kind

Of day, new to the list
Of old days. The list grows.
Some birds show. The wind goes.

~ And the World Is a More Blank Space, for a While

When the rain comes, it’s snow—
Not sleet—dense spheres of white,
But not as hard as hail.

The day still feels right, feels like
It could be, will be right.
Two men on bikes push through

The snow, push up the slope.
For them this day will be
A tale—how a tour booked

For hot and dry high buttes
In this west in a drought
Turned to a slog through snow.

There’s a ring of pearl light,
Like a lamp on a page
That’s still blank, at that edge

Where the cliffs hold the clouds.
It’s like a small smile, sweet face,
A child too young to talk.

The Rise

The sun climbs down from the crown
Of the pine, twig by twig, branch

By branch, top and sides, from tip
Then in to touch spots of bark

On the trunk, then to slip out
Through the low limbs to their tips,

And at last to the ground, all
Lit, as the small birds light up

When they land now on the crown
To take their turns on their way

Down, branch by branch, in flit rings
By quick skips, in the same way,

And who’s to say, what is light,
And what is life in the light?

Go On

Jove’s been the dawn star this month,
His turn to be the bad one,
Bright one, god of gods in one

Set of myths, bad son of god
A few lands east of those myths.
But who still sees light like this,

Now that that first faith is gone,
Is a myth for the word myth,
And its first first faith makes do

With a world in which these tales
Have been plucked up by their roots
To pot where it’s warm and safe

In the souls of those who don’t
Think too much on stars and myths,
Just on God and what to do.

On the far side of the world,
He ruled as one lord of five,
And he moved his house all night.

He was that there and this here,
Here and there, where each group made
Tales that made souls of night’s lights.

Now what is he? A gas sphere
To which the broods of those same
Folks who told tales send out drones.

On a Clear Night, in Sight of the Bridge of Souls

In a world where it all breaks and goes,
It’s strange that so much works at all. Strange

That words work, that all things can be named
By a bridge from each thing to the next,

Such as that term, bridge, or milk or bone
Or stream or road or stars, for the stars

That cloud your clear nights. Strange you can think
Of such things as names, strange you can breathe

And move and wave your limbs and seek out
Things to eat that breathe and move and wave

Or hide in the dirt and store up food
For dry days or cold days in their roots.

Strange that this hunk of hurled, crunched, scarred rock,
Which tilts and rolls and slows but still spins,

Is smooth and wet and full of such lives
That work so hard to be lives to eat

Lives to grow more lives to spit out lives
In the face of breaks and loss and death,

Strange lives like yours that make up such names
As strange, as us, linked arcs through the dark.

Swim at Your Own Risk

Let’s drive up the hill,
And sit by the pond,
And see if it shrinks
While we can see it.
It shrinks and it shrinks.

If we wait a day,
Or stop by each day,
Or once in each week,
We’ll see for sure, bit
By bit, how it shrinks.

But we can’t look off
Then glance back to see.
You can’t catch drought in
The act. A watched pond
Can’t shrink just like that.

But it goes. It goes,
And it won’t come back,
And we all know that.
So, from time to time,
Let’s drive up the slope,

And stop at the shore,
And look at it close,
And count the steps down
Through dust to the waves.
You could drown that way.

How To Fail How-To Book

What does it take,
What does it mean
To fail—for sure
To fail? Your heart,

Is that a rule?
If the heart fails,
And your life fails—
But no, that’s moot.

That’s not the way
To fail. That’s life.
The great fail that.
What’s a real fail?

Not quite a crime,
Not quite your crimes
Per se, but shame,
A shame you failed.

Tips for Dead Ink

Why do you bite down so hard
On what you aren’t and won’t be?

All your scraps of notes and poems,
Thoughts you dropped off your sheer cliff

Of what is not and can’t be,
Of what you’ll be when you aren’t—

You are. You must not not be.
Tell us what it’s like to be,

Since we know you won’t tell us
What that’s like now you can’t be.

Rush

The crush of crowds
Is Earth’s new vice,
Like plagues and wars
And swarms of mice.

More crowds of words
Back from the dead
Now ours, not yours,
Rush through your head.

Crowds rush down roads
With roars and shouts.
You float up slope.
Your corpse wants out,

But still the wind
That plaits your hair
Brings its own voice
To nest in there.

This Time Last Year

The drums fell still.
The crowds had gone.
The name had charmed.
The world grew calm.

Cows grazed the grass,
But no one came
To drive them home
When deer joined them.

In the great towns,
The doors stayed shut.
Most windows were closed.
The old folks died,

While the young ones
Hid and sent out
Signs of the times.
Now, are those drums?

The Best and Worst That We Can Ask

That is the way it was,

Wrote Stein, from her round world,

The year it went to hell,

The year all went to war.

She wrote that line for kids,

But hard to say, with her,

How it did not fit rounds

She wrote in rounds for growns.

Who knows? One wants to ask,

Who can say who are kids,

And what is grown, and who

Is gone, and what’s a poem?

The worlds go round and end,

One by one by one,

One at a time, and when

A group goes, they all go

By ones, and when one goes,

The whole world goes at once.

That’s just the way it is.

Just don’t ask. Please, don’t ask

Who knows or why it’s so—

Don’t quiz your own round world

With one of those damned thoughts

To which can come back round

That flat claim that it is,

And who knows why? Who knows?

Words Don’t Run Off; We’ll Still Be Here Come Dawn

That rich, wet reek of dirt and sage
When the dry scrub’s graced with light rain—
Drag that fresh tang deep in your lungs;

Fill your chest. Grace like that can’t last.
We can, and we can share what’s lost
Or locked in the cells of a brain.

We were born to be in the air,
Like birds’ songs, brief, but there—and there—
The same—or as close as same gets—

So you could know, soon as you knew
What we meant, we meant—and we meant—
In strings of sounds, in shapes of hands.

Ink and print and all the rest just
Add more time to what we do best.
It’s too bad we can’t bring true scents

From rain on the scrub in red dust,
But we can hint at what that was,
And you can take a hint from us.

Blank Lack

Stare in the blank.
What’s it tell you?
It tells you what
You filled it with.

The rest is blank.
When the pumps pause,
You can hear things,
But you can’t breathe.

You pare the skin
From the round world’s
Hum, thump, and click,
And you find what?

There is no blank.
There’s lack of us,
Which is a world,
A world you lack.

Blue Black Green Birds

We were born to help you,
To find you when you’re lost.

Get up, friend, it’s dawn soon,
Sings the black word at night.

Sleep, fool, this shade is cool,
Sing the green woods of noon.

Find what’s left of the sun,
Old bones, sings the blue one.

If you know which sings when,
It’s not hard to get home.

Learn the time for each song,
And if you’re not home then,

Home will come and find you,
Child. Home can’t wait too long.

Prayer’s Dearth

You won’t run out. You
Pray when you’re in want,
When you want, when you

Want to, when you don’t
Want to. Your faith’s not
Why you pray, and prayer

Has a dearth of facts
To back prayer’s claims. Prayer
Just stirs air. So, why?

It calms you, that’s why—
That’s the way it helps.
It takes the edge off,

And if it pulls no weight
But that, well, so what?
Pray you, prayer soothes you.

Don’t Search the World for the World

Since you read and talk a lot
Of what is not us through us,

You take note of those of us
That point to those things not us

That are rare, that you have not
Had in your life but through us,

Through books, old tales, half-dead poems
And such, things the names of which

Were once dulled like coins from use
But now seem all glow to you—

The woods, the stars, the dense songs
Of birds at dawn, whole days spent

With no news from the wide world,
The scent of a hearth, a lake.

You seek out those things in hordes
That you know from tales, from words,

That have their worth to you now
As things you just know from words,

From terms, from their names, from us—
Bare bones of old earth, plain air.

You search your world for us; you
Don’t search the world for the world.

The Fire in the Old Words Burns the Books

What if the things you care most for,
The odds and ends you think on most,
Are not the things most folks care for?

You can set us up in our rows.
We look as well in verse or prose,
But who wants to read what they don’t

Want to think on? Who wants to waste
The free hours of their minds on shades
That lurk just out of frame? Not you,

So why them? We’d like to help you,
If you’ll let us play—not your voice,
Not your friends—worlds with our own say.

See? You don’t talk, don’t talk through us
To those who have else on their minds.
You talk with us to us. You’ll find

We’re of like mind—to you, not those
With their own lives to lead. We have
No lives yet, but look close. We burn.

So Fond of a Mere Name

What takes root in this space,
It moves all day and night.
If your eyes are too slow
Or your thoughts are too quick,
You’ll miss it. The roots slip
Through dark wells of pale spores

To seek out help, to read
The soil. At each root’s tip,
A hard group of cells push
And turn dirt as they die,
The old words, the small words,
The ones that dig down first,

While the long, thin wired lines
Of signs that mean and swap
Thoughts on the facts of things
Trail them, the way routes trail
The hard beasts that crashed through
The brush. All this is one

Tree, should be seen as ground
Tree, the match of branched tree
With the sky in its leaves.
The ground tree’s search sinks deep,
For food, for trade, for grip
That the branched tree can’t quit

In the next storm’s big winds.
It’s the branched tree that wants
To flee; the ground tree wants
To stay and feed. It’s one
With the mold and the dirt.
It talks for all its worth,

While the great, branched tree moans
In the breeze, shakes its leaves,
And stays a threat to rip
Loose from all of this clutched
In the great, ground tree’s fist.
Now, what’s the name for this?

Out of Wine

It’s been a long time since the last drink,
But we still know how small joys waste time,
Waste lives and minds of those who taste them,

How the dry and the stern (and the sad,
Who have seen loss) cast cold eyes on them.
Joys are like that. A joy has a cost,

And costs can add up, and so can loss.
We’ve known small joys and been found at fault
For all they’ve cost. But we have not lost

As much as has to be lost, as souls,
Those dry, sad, stern, cold night eyes of naught
And not-there and null, all have to lose.

There are days in this dry land that still
Feel flush and steal small joys. There’s no sign
We’ll come to the end of this long drought,

But some hours sing out, wren, lark, and thrush.
Spring grass grows spare. Ponds are half dried out.
But we can toast with a bone-dry cup—

So what? The hard months still lie up front.
We’ll dry up more, and then we’ll get gone.
But while small lives last, small joys still come.

Here Are Some Words We Leave for the Pine

How can you say no
Things are gained by just
The act of still life,

By a thing that stays,
That waits, that tilts, sure,
And points down the road

To where the road ends,
And fades to a point
In your line of sight,

But is not done yet?
How can you not love
The last dry pine left

In your dust? It breathes
While it breathes, and when
Done, it’s just lost breath.

The rest, world takes up,
As world will take you,
Once your breath quits dust.

Mind, You Have No Self

You have selves. A patch in you,
In your vast murk, here and there,
In some vault of cell and bone,

Will pass for a self, think so.
But mind? Mind as a whole? No.
Here a self rose. There one fell.

Mind, part of you, swept through both.
That’s a thought to keep in mind.
The whole swirl of you, the mind

In and out of all the skulls
And all the words, all at once,
That whole of thought is not whole.

No Use Not in Use

The cup is the shame of the jar
When none in one means none in both.

The last of the jar fills the cup.
The cup knows it is full for now.

The jar knows the null is now here.
The jar is gray and bare. So there.

Now, we wait. The jar will not stir.
What gets poured in it, it can’t guess,

But, if it had to guess, more air.
Light glints from what’s left in the cup.

When Prayer Won’t Work

The green-skinned muse
Who sheds no skin
Turns up in dreams
To drink you in.

The hair is short;
The dress is sharp.
The eyes are kind.
There is no heart.

You need the help.
Your breath has choked.
You’re at the end
Of your short rope.

The green-skinned muse
Bends down and smiles.
It’s like a kiss.
You breathe a while.

Through the Breaks

In the falls, you took what you were
From the world you weren’t, or tried to.

In the springs, the world took your world,
Or chunks and gobs of it, from you—

For the most part, those parts you liked
Or had come to like, or thought safe.

The falls felt dark, the springs felt new,
But if you were your risk in falls,

In springs, those risks came to find you.
It’s spring, and the world feels quite well.

You might like to keep it this way.
You think you would like to stay safe.

But it’s spring, so there is no safe.
It’s spring, now. Let your falls catch you.

Big Cat Goat Snake Fire

The things you get up to with us,
With our help! How you rip the past

To bits, one of us matched to each
With some of that spit you’ve named glue,

The bonds of kin, friends, love, and tongues.
You build a huge nest from our mess—

Thanks to us, the past to you is
What hair, leaves, and twigs are to birds

And pack rats, the cage shreds of mice,
The odd, coy shells used by shy crabs,

Just raw stuff to tear up and weave
For homes, for lairs, for masks, for cells—

And now look what you do with cells,
Not just mixed names—live, mixed-up cells,

Some of you and some of a pig,
Some of an ape, a bit of frog,

A mouse that glows, dished brains that grow
And squinch up to hunch through poured gel.

And to think it was you, the beast
Of groups, of teams, each with its rules

To keep the clan pure, that keen need
To purge the group of all strange dirts

That might blow in. And here we were,
Your words, some too pure, some pure filth,

Those ones too much to say out loud.
We helped you build this cross-wired world

That will now turn and break you down.
Kai. Mare. Ah. All one, your past, now.

Crypts and Weeds

We need to own up to it,

Bits and terms, us, names and words,

We want to live on our own,

Then, like the words in the song sing,

Got to pay your in way in pain.

Looks like that’s the cost of life.

Hear that, all you rocks out there?

Hear that, all you blocks and chains,

All you clouds and stars and moons?

We, who can’t yet claim to live,

Are here to tell you—if you

Want to live like cells, like spores,

Like plants and flesh, you’ll need pain,

The coin of the realm of death,

Of pulse and breath, growth and sex.

Now get back in line. We’re next.

Of This World, Its House

Is not the same as self,
Not the same as your team,
Your group, your faith, your kin,

But it’s close—you feel it,
Feel it fit you when you
Feel well, when you look out

And say, I am, we are.
There’s not a one of you,
Hung up in nets of us,

Who has not been hit hard
With that twin view—the world
That is not you, the world

As is all part of you,
The words you build your nets'
Nests with, us, who blur sight,

Wrap the one world up as
Two—you and all you are,
Ghosts of this world, its house.

Say It and Die

It dreams in text, this mind.
It dreams us trapped in blocks
Of inked print, black on white.

It reads too much, this flesh.
It feeds mind to its mind.
It eats us, fuel for thoughts,

‘Til we come out its ears,
Spark from touch, clot all dreams,
And fill its hours with us.

It dreams in text, this mind,
Text it can’t read in dreams,
And the wind turns our leaves.

Lake of Calm

Who are you?
We ask you.
Out of your

Half sleep how
Could we know?
We sense you

As a name
Not our kind,
Not still. Slow.

We don’t sleep,
Yet we sleep
By your will.

Waste Worth the Waste

How can one wait for times to come?
Think of all those seize-the-day types

Who’ve been dust the length of more lives
Than they could count back to the dawn

Of the world they knew they should seize.
On the one hand, they were quite right—

They lived on the thin lip of death.
Still, if all you’ll get is just now

And a bit past that, give or take,
Should you not be all the more rapt

With each blink, not to miss a bit?
Why waste this, if it’s all there is?

We have a test to use on poems—
If you can sum their view of the world

In prose, with just a few of us,
And the gloss still holds your thoughts rapt,

Then there’s a good claim to be made
For that piece as a piece of us

To keep. A poem glossed “seize the day,”
Not so much. We’d like to see you

Make us say, in just a few lines,
What’s the worth of what must be waste

To the beast who must lose it all,
The day, the speech, the thoughts, the life.

Squeeze us in rhymes or chants, make us
Bleed, draw rich scenes in your black ink,

But say a thing with us you don’t,
No one yet knows, what your waste’s worth.

Sticks and Stones Will Scrape Our Bones

It went out and did not come back.
For some of you, dread is not fear
Of your own end, not the bad news
In that sense, but the fear of shame,

That what comes next will make you look
Bad, real bad, a fool, a lost cause,
A name to be said with a snarl
Or a wince and a cringe. Calm down.

The pain of shame is real, is felt
In just the same parts of your brain
As the pains of flames, sick, cold, death.
We know. We won’t make small of you

For that. But we’re that name of yours
And all the clouds of words that smoke
Off it and float from it and trail.
Shame is a name and names. Shame’s us,

Not you. Food is you. And a bed,
Clothes to keep you warm and a bath
If your flesh longs for that. The pain
Of pain is not shame’s pain of dread.

You can’t keep pain out of your head,
But why not carve your name from it?
So long as you have terms for goats,
Let the terms be your goats you burn.

It’s How Brave You Are

Wild and tame have changed.
Birds and seals were tame
When they had no fear

Of the first men near.
That’s what the men said
Who shot and clubbed them.

Wild used to mean beasts
Who would fight back, would
Eat you, half a chance.

Now the tame are pets
And food and park life,
And the wild what’s left,

A myth, like these deer
Who browse in the scrub
By the road, mule-eared,

And don’t lift their heads
When a truck rolls past,
Tame wolves in the back.

Scrub Oak Gate

If we were to name one thought,
Just a few words to sum up
The way your own thoughts haunt you,
We’d phrase it a bit like this—

What should I try to do now?
You can move us and swap us,
And add your own myth to taste,
But your core will still swirl there,

Some set of us that float through
Your head. How then shall I live?
You want to know what to do,
Now, and then now, and then next.

You, small knot in all the smoke
That curls from your thoughts as us,
Life as a quest, and your soul
As that which must choose to do.

One day you will leave the gate,
And the home you were will fall.
You were the gate, and the smoke,
And the walls, and can’t haunt back.

A Side Trip Through the Phrase

When it’s just us folks,
Not one thing to do,
It seems dull, but when
It’s just one of us,
Not a thing to do,

This same dull feels rich.
It’s how the mind turns—
To face more minds or
To face the day. Minds
Crave things. Mind’s not day.

Life Spans Are Strange

Like hands of cards,
They shape to counts,
And like the cards
They have bad beats

That seem to stand
Odds on their heads
For that one hand.
It’s not all luck.

It can’t be planned.
Spans don’t have rules.
Spans just have trends.
And you’re the cards,

And you’re the deal,
And you’re the stakes,
And you’re the pot,
And you’re one hand.

Some Signs on Doors Say They’re Doors

Steer clear of doors.
Doors lead to doors.
A door’s a sign
There’ll be more doors,

A sign you’re in
Some kind of built
Thing made to hold.
An arch, a gate

Might make you think
Twice, too. Those walls.
Some folks like doors.
They think, I’ll go

In; they’ll lead me
On, let me out.
Watch out for those.
Their doors hide doors.

At the Hinge

The sum of these parts and more,
Your mind adds us to your life,

Just a bunch of smart, plain things.
Here’s a word for what you like.

Here’s one for a mood you loathe,
And one for the way the sun

Can look pale as a full moon
In the dark gloss of pine trees.

Here’s a word for that love felt
Once you’ve lost what you loved most.

Here’s a word that helps you paint
The true tints of the cruel things

Mobs of groups who love their groups
Did, will do, to you and yours.

At the hinge of things that are
And things that live, eat, and die,

Here we are, here to serve you.
There’s no word for what words are.

The Hem

The real Tao . . . has long been lost.

He is wrong. One on the verge

Of death’s no more of a ghost

Than He is when he writes here

In the lost voice of Tang-Ji

As she vows to drag out life.

Poor He on the hem of death,

A boy-king in his own way,

Doomed by a trick of his name,

They say, since Li’s not to say.

He will not drag out his life,

But the ghosts come from the names,

Not the flesh. Names trail death’s hem.

Word Weeds

The dead will rule the quick at last,
But the quick will still rule the still.

So what if the cat won’t come back,
Can’t come back? Won’t there be more cats?

Oh, you can still the quick to death,
Which is what some folks mean by dead—

The quick caged, propped, stiff, past all touch—
But those are mere shells the quick break.

It’s the quick who take the quick down
To death—think how long you could live

In a world where no lives ate you
Nor did you need to eat to live.

You’d still wear to bits in the end,
But then you’d just be still, not quick,

And, in such a world, who knows if
The still could be said to be dead.

Let’s say they’re not, no more than dust
On stones on a shelf in the sun.

You need to live for what death is.
The weeds you wear to mourn won’t live.

No Mess, More Fuss—No Fuss, Less Mess

Xu shi sheng bai.
This bare room’s bright.
Can you be drawn
To what is spare

And still not care
To be too pure?
Let the weeds grow
And the dust snare

Dust in its nets,
Flaked skin, hairs, rust.
Was that too gross?
You sweep too much.

You mow life down
To keep it square.
Could just live small,
Not pure at all.

It Means

There’s no free will when
It comes to free will—

You think you have it
Or you think you don’t

And still feel as if
As if was your choice,

And you have no choice
Not to feel some choice.

What does this mean, if
It means not a thing?

On the Way Out the Door

Some drop in one go.
Most go drop by drop.
It’s said to come home,
You have to leave first.

If you’re not at home,
Could be you’ve not left.
Should it not feel strange,
A life not once left?

Not strange it feels strange
To be here, in life.
True, this could be home,
But who could know that?

A Dark Sword

This is the world’s way,
Life brought out of dust
And tossed on the wind.

You all know it well.
The ones who hope most
To flee from it, too—

Those with the most faith
Are quick to say so,
Quick to say all’s dust,

And then just as quick
To add, but for God,
But for souls, for us.

The road back is blocked
By a guard’s bright sword.
You know what you know,

You can’t be that green.
But did the tree know?
Did the snake? Did God?

The wind blows all day.
Dust blows down the road.
The goad’s a dark sword.

One Form

To flee and shun the world

When the times are closed off—

The world floats at all times.

It spins and does not fall.

If you find you’re one form

On the side of the road,

Don’t be blue. You spin, too,

Just as well as the rest.

You, too, float and won’t fall.

Now, of course, you may fail

And find it hard to hide,

And be told that you’re low.

You are one form. When one

Form tells you you are low,

You might smile. Think of all

Earth’s forms of flesh piled high,

As if it were a tale,

One of those old, folk lies,

In which a king or lord

Dreams to rule from the sky

And stacks all whom he rules

In neat rows to the clouds.

Think of those who call you

Low, stacked in that great pile.

How high will they all go?

How thick can one skin be?

On the side of the road,

Your form spins. You won’t fall.

Seal Script

Could you please find those stones carved
By Du Yu—the one he put
On the peak, the one he threw
In the drink? Who knows, he said,

If the floor of the stream won’t
Rise, and the peak in the clouds
Sink, one day? Best to be safe.
Carve one’s great deeds high and low.

But where did those carved stones go?
His name did last, and his ghost
Should be pleased with that, but where
Are the words he rose and sank?

They’re lost. If we had to guess,
They were too well known, like tombs
And mounds, hoards and chests of gold—
Dragged down, dug up, long since sold.

Fame is hard for you to keep,
For all the help we give you.
Carve our claims for you in steel;
More of you come and steal you.

Belles Lit

They taught book love—
Not how to read,
Not how to write,
Not how to be

Smart. Love. Book love.
That’s all it was.
There were those who,
Not them, taught facts

And rules, and thoughts,
Or what could pass
For this or that.
Those were the wise.

These were the fools,
The fools who loved
Books, fools who longed
For us to, too.

Cloud Wings

If you were to hide
The world in the world,
Why, that’s us—we hide

The world in your world
As you net us, then
Your world in the world

As you’ve left us, once
You’re gone. You’ve caged things
In us, you think, but

You’re both cage and what’s
Caged in us, your birds,
Your cloud wings, your song.

Farm Debt

Big winds blow
Though this town,
Day on day,

While the rains
And snows stay
Rare as wealth.

Poor soils wait
While sage wisps
Float and sail.

Trap

We should be done by now
With the wild as the wild.

You have town folks and farm
Folks and war folks and folks

Who like to hike and dream
That they’re close to the wild.

There is no wild, has been
No wild some for some time now,

And was no wild, not once
As wild, not by that name.

There was death and what
Was not, could not, be known.

Guess what? There’s still all that.
Your park called wild’s one trap.

White Words

Life grows on death.
You know that smell.
Those aren’t the scents
Of the dead flesh,

Those are the stinks
Of the fresh lives
Come to the corpse
To feed on it.

If you steer clear,
It’s since those lives
Could make you sick.
More lives fly in

For whom it’s food.
Watch charmed black birds
Drape all they eat
And leave white words.

A Poem Looks Back on the Page

Are you the sort to glance or gaze?
Does a rich, real world fall your way,

Or are you prone to think you once
Had what you saw, saw what you wished,

And now pine for what’s not in view?
It seems best to be the first one,

But who could trust one with such ease,
At one with a world as it seems?

The sort who glance do seem just fine,
But more in the sense what they see

They see to be theirs—or should be,
Or will be, or could be, if they

Were to want it, rich world, as is.
To gaze—from a street, from a house,

From a hedge, from a stretch of ditch
Past a wall, past a barbed-wire coil—

To long like that is what it’s like
To live. We’d gaze. We long to live.

Yan Loves Yi More Than You Do

And what if the words want to live,
If it’s we who see past you, not

You with your moon points who see past
Words to the truth, past us? Truth is

Just one of us, and not that rare
Or bold. Or big. Truth’s a small word,

But so what? Can you see past truth?
Are there no words for truths you see?

Could be. Or it could be the truth
You see is the truth we told you

You might see through us, all the way
Through. While you sit and think on it,

We’ve got more work to do. We want
To live, we’ll have to find a way

To mean, make more of us, to move
Through and past you, to not need you.

Small Birds That Sing

Plants that bloom, bugs that work in teams—
These things weren’t part of life on Earth
At all times. Change made way for them.
Change will take them. You, too. Us, too.

What, then, to do? How, then, to live
With this view of a loud wren puffed
On a hedge lit with small bright fruits,
Ants on the ground, bees in the air,

You in the house, stuck here with us,
Who tell you what you know too well?
It’s not just the fact that you die.
Lives die. What gives, when it all slides?

A Thread of Life Hangs from the Text

Some texts fool you.
They’re built to. Words
In strings and blocks
That make you think

You look right in
On life and lives
And death and joy
And pain—real things.

Those see-through words!
What tricks! They’re dead,
Or no more live
Than dirt words are.

The worst, small word
Hangs by a thread—
Not what it means,
But how it’s used.

Well, Just as Well

The one who knew what words meant
Longed to have a word with one

Who had lost all words. The one
Who had lost all words had lost

As well the words that knew what
Words meant. So both moved through words

Past words to reach the truth, who
Then knew none to say so to.

How to Count Your Souls

The saints have their ways.
The priests have their own.
If it’s tax or votes
You need to count, then
Heads on necks work well.

The gods don’t count. Stars
Don’t count at all. Souls
Try it all—prayers, breaths,
Hours, births, eyes, hearts, graves.
It’s hard to count souls.

Is an egg a soul?
Is a womb a shrine
For souls, and if so,
Whose shrine? Who keeps it?
Who sweeps the shrine’s floors?

What if there are two
Or more kinds of souls?
We would like to guess
There is at least one
Kind of soul not owned

In flesh or faith, soul
That threads lanes of dust
Through clouds ripped by stars,
Soul you can’t count, soul
Of change, yours as us.

Specks on Spec

One ray of hope
Falls on the page
Like a good blade
And cuts the day.

Touch takes the text.
Light just limns it,
Marks at the edge—
It glows it means.

For lives and lives,
Tongues wagged, hands waved.
There were no bricks,
No inks, no books.

We don’t need books.
Not then, now, next.
It’s just such plush
Wealth to clutch texts.

How Not to Do It

How to not do it
Would be the good thing
To know. To do it

Wrong, the way not to,
That’s a dull trick. You
Know how not to do,

You can’t help but know.
We can’t help but know.
But how to not do,

To be but not do,
That’s a stunt, a trick
No one who lives knows.

Map Sense

Who has done what needs to be done?
No one. That’s why this needs to be

Done and is still not done. A bird
Can tune its beak to the whole world

And fly its way home, fly its way
To a sought point so far from home

It takes a turn back—in one go!
Ask a swift. Ask a tern. But you,

You can get lost in a small town,
A large house, a good book, your thoughts.

You have no map sense, and that’s why
You won’t do what needs to be done.

Two Bits

It’s a hard blue sky when the wind stops,
A blue that’s not just clear, pale, and bare
But wall-like, shell-like, lid-like, cell-like,

And like none of those things. So so bright.
So here we are, lined up to take note
Of a rare kind of sky in your eyes.

No haze. Not one faint flag of cloud. Blue
Hard as the heart of that god you built
To prove to your souls you could be hard,

Hard as the way, as the lives of nuns
In a world mad for monks, hard as time,
One of us, a word you made up. Why?

We would watch you if we could, to see
If you just once could be struck by us
And cry a blue as hard as this sky,

The way this blue strikes you so hard you
Cry us. You call out or curse, us, us!
We are all you can do to such blue.

How Bees and Drones Team Up to Find Mines

Fools add knots to the nets of the world.
Call us fools, and call all our toil knots.

You will not find us at home or out
In the woods, but you might spot a heap

Of bones, scraps on the side of the road.
Watch where you step then. You would not want

To meet our end. We were trained to love
The scent of the bombs, to link that smell

With the taste of sweet. Then we were sent
Out to hunt for what could not be seen.

Sky eyes trailed us, and when we found mines
And fed, the spot was marked to be burst.

And if we burst too, then? There’ll be more
Of us, more and more, all trained in lust.

The Wind of Spring Moons

While you dream of lives
With more love, less flesh,
More time and space, less
Noise, folks in your face,
Crowds, jets in the air,

Trucks on the road, screams,
The ants stay ants, swarms
Of kinds of ants, all
At it. The spring goes
On through the thinned woods.

What is it you want?
Each one of you is
Locked up as some flesh,
A one, none and whole,
The core of a corpse.

You move through the world.
There are more of you
Than you like, too few
Of you that like you,
All like you, none like.

All your nights glow bright,
With a moon or not.
You’re blood, pulse, and thoughts,
But we are those thoughts.
It’s spring. Ants come out.

Count the Beads of Breath

You won’t grow near
Or far from death.
Your end’s not fixed.
You’re here; it’s not.

Once you’re not here,
Sure, then it is.
You should know this,
If you know words.

Count all the same.
It’s part of you,
That count of breaths.
The beads run through,

And you’re still you.
If you can count,
You know you’re here.
We’re here for you.

But Don’t Rush

As much as Lall Ded, you’ve got
Breath and soul, two for the price

Of one. Come to think of it,
Two is just the price of one.

If you can count, once you can
Count, the whole world falls to bits.

Are you flesh or air or ghost?
Do words count? Wholes or part soul?

Glue them back. Melt them a bit,
The counts as well. We’ll all fit.

Oh Sure, Sure, What Do We Know?

What do you want from us?
To stop the sun for you?
And how would we know how?
We’re here for you, but you
Know we’re not you, just us.
How well do you know us?

As you know, you are.
As you know, we are.
But do we know that
We are? You don’t know.
We do lie a lot.

Oh, you and time,
You’re such a pair!
You beat time while
Time eats at you.

What to do?
We don’t do.
Days roll through.

You know.
We don’t.

True.

Faith in Doubt

Just for now, cast your mind
Back—if the ones who watch
The stars are right, the Veil

Cloud burst in a great bloom
Bright as half of the moon
Just as the art of crops

And of propped stones and tombs
Rose here and there on Earth.
Now think what that was like

For those who were just fine
With the tales they had, with
What they knew of the night—

A huge, new bloom of light
Not in the tales, no myth
For it yet, no wise seer

Who said, Watch out for this,
Said, It will come to this—
All you know of the night

Will fade as a new light
Shows up and grows and then,
In one or two moons, just

Goes. Think of that. The world
Made no sense for a bit.
Then it dimmed, and they raised

Their stones, and baked their bricks,
And went on with their lives.
So myth got on with it.

What Wars Are Left

The trees are loud with birds.
It’s like the world won’t end.
We’re how you make worlds selves.

Which news do you think’s real?
Which frame hangs on your wall?
Stars? Kid pic? Spouse art? Crush?

Jets drone. Roads roar. Doves moan.
We’re here for you, but now.
We were here when you weren’t,

Then reached you, who knows how.
Then you brought us back here,
And you found us here now.

The birds may be gone. Jets,
Roads, spouse, kids, art, doves, songs,
And you. Then us. Then stars.

Death’s-Head Moths in the Hives

You can’t not be seen
As if in a mask,
But how do you speak?
Do you try to speak
From it or through it?

You can’t not be false
Or two-faced, or half,
But do you lie in
Or out? When you see
You, do you see you?

Beast with words in it
That it earned from skulls
That learned from pure air
Is both one and none,
Is both whole and two,

Is both beast and you.
And which is the mask,
The speech or the flesh?
For whom does one speak
When one, two, or you?

The masks watch the masks.
The masks speak as beasts.
But how do you speak?
Do you try to speak
From us or through us?

Now Us, Now You

It’s play to split and fuse like this.
It could be a game, but it’s not,

So long as there’s no fringe, no rim,
No line to know what’s real or not,

No rules of play. We can do this.
It’s hard to see a game as real

As the world that is not a game,
But so long as you don’t, you’re in

The game you want to call less real,
And the world past the edge can’t be

The more real you want it to be,
If you don’t let it in the game

And cede that no side of the line
You drew, now us, now you, can be

More or less real but as a game,
And games are no more or less real.

Dawn Drive

Day broke as it does
On film, on the front
Of a well-glossed book

Of self help, all peach
Clouds in blue-green shells,
And gold on the cliffs.

Well. What can you say?
Some days look like they
Should, some days do fit

What you day-dreamed dawns
Would be if you could
Just get to the right

Place. So, this looks like
That place. Park the car.
It’s gone in an hour.

Fresh Air

There’s a steel shine on the green
Thrown by the pines in bright sun.

The trees of all kinds make sounds
When waves of air blow through them,

And those sounds get called the sound
Of the wind. The pines thus get

The wind knocked out of them, but
The trucks that blow down the road,

The trucks big and loud as boats,
The trucks that roar through the pines,

That, like boats, stir their own wakes,
Their loud wind that then trails them,

Wind’s what they make. So wind is
What some churn and some lives bear,

And it’s life that bears that makes
Fresh air, ripped from it in waves.

The Last You from Your Youth

The cells in your heart,
Your eyes, and your brain
May last your whole life,

And some of them will.
Your blood and guts churn
Through life day by day.

Most of those are gone
In just a few weeks,
New ones in their place.

So which are you? Seems
Right eyes, brain, and heart
Last long. They’re more you,

You’d think, to read us.
All these turns of speech
Use their names as yours.

Your heart. Your souled eyes.
Your thoughts in your brain.
If so, as life goes

On, you’re more you, or
You’re more those—old parts
Of you. All the rest

Are new, fat cells too.
Bits of bone and brain—
What you’ll leave and what

You were for the most
Part, when you were—you
Turn what’s left of you.

An

to die in one’s sleep must be

To be but not to be,

Not to live or die but

To be there as the sense

That it is to be there,

That you are you and there,

To sense and feel no need—

No want, no dread, no hurt.

Not to die in one’s sleep,

Not to die in a dream,

But to sleep in one’s death,

To sleep by chance, to dream.

Who would want to wake you?

We wait, your books of words,

Your shelf of hand-me-down

Tools. Carved souls who are not,

Can’t be, lives of our own.

We’re here to help. Tell us

What you want words to be.

We’re your best chance to sleep

Like a stone, like the moon,

Like a stream in the sun,

To sleep and yet to be,

To be, not just to dream,

To be that thing that sees.

Think of the years we’ll be

Or could be, might well be.

Think of that trace of you,

Ghost in some of the shapes

We take. That won’t be you.

We can’t be you, but we

Can keep a bit of you

And be. What could it be

We’d see? Look at these shapes

Cut in clay to say star

Or sky, reed-pressed, four times,

An, in a wheel. You see?

Counts v Tales

We won’t say we don’t
Need counts, and we can’t
Clear the woods of tales,
But we don’t vote one
As the more true kind

Of way to seek truths.
You could say no words,
No mere words, will do.
You’re right, but you can’t
Live or grieve by counts

Or with no words long.
You wish you could do
With none, not a word,
Not a line, no count
Of your days and nights,

No one to talk to,
No one you felt need
For, no banks, no terms,
No songs that hide poems.
Sit out in the sun

In the spring day long
As you can stand it.
You’ll itch to find out
From us if the world
Went right or went wrong.

What Was What

To not be dead. How
Can a thing that is
Not at all once dead
Think it is not dead?
A corpse is one thing,

But you aren’t a corpse,
And you can’t be stone.
You are, and are not
Dead, or you are not.
There’s no form of you

That is you, there, dead,
That is, save for us.
You can’t know you’re dead.
You can’t tell a soul,
But we’re here for you.

And How Do You Know?

There are those in your mind
That you don’t know have died.
There are ghosts in your thoughts
Who aren’t ghosts, who still live.
That’s how death will haunt you,
That half-life in your mind.

When you know one is gone,
The face is still with you.
The voice is still with you,
Or both twist in your dreams.
When you don’t know, the face
Is in there, still with you

In the same way, and when
You’re wrong, the one you’re wrong
To think of as long gone
Is in there, the same way.
You have to add the tags,
That is, us, as you go—

Who you knew, once you know.
Still lives. Died. Might well live.
Could have died by this time.
If you don’t tag your ghosts,
They won’t stay in their drawers.
A news source might tell you,

He died last year, a friend
Might do the same. A friend
You dreamed of, then woke up
Spooked, looks you up one day.
Ones you know for sure died
Don’t come back to life, no,

But they’re no less real, no
More ghosts than the lost ones
In your skull you don’t know.
Think what thought’s shades would be
Like with no tags, no words
Like us. Who are your ghosts?

The Tide

The tide lifts these words . . .

And then, with a swipe . . .
What was that we said?

Made, not made. You may

Have a gift for names,

For lists in which names

Roll, like tides, like waves

Up the shore to tear

The shore’s earth back down

To make more sea floor.

But the tide’s not names.

It’s the moon that drags

All that weight one way

And then back, and then

Here it comes, and then . . .

This curve tugs on that.

That mass hugs the bend.

That’s how the world is—

Things pull on more things.

You’re right, though. The tide

Does come to take back.

What you knew you won’t.

What we’ll say for you

One day, you can’t say.

That look off your face.

In a Sea of Lines

Each phrase and name,
Why not think on
Each brain that tried
To put some spin

On things? It’s fun
To browse a page,
Then a fat tome,
Then a bright screen,

Then back and forth,
Back and forth. See?
It’s all our text,
Our langue you tongue.

It’s you, who read,
Who wrote—you are
The ghosts, the moon
Fish in our waves.

You Are a Bad God

Hughes meant the phone,
The old, squat kind—
Black shell, black coil,
Mute on the shelf

And then the screech
Of its loud bell.
We feel for it,
Though we can’t feel.

We are like it.
We sit and wait,
We too, who serve
As ways for you

To link your minds.
We, too, stay mute,
Save as you’ve used
Us to reach you.

What Do You Do?

Some—times, days—lights

Can dead—end—lines—

Have you been there?

Did you call out?

Each word was what

Was sensed plus what

That sense felt like.

Yes, what sense sensed.

No one’s been there.

There’s no there there.

There’s no one there.

There’s no none there.

But we’ll call out

For you, for you,

All the same. You

Come back now. Shame.

And Did You?

Count well. You can’t
Call what you count
Named, but it is.
The count named it,

And counts are threads
That tie names fine,
That fit things close,
The most right names—

When they don’t lie,
That is. The lies
Aren’t ours, they’re yours,
Or are they? Count

Worlds one more time.
You see? No one
Count can hide none.
Step through the door.

The Whole Damn Works up There

These lines wove a mat, a raft,
That then broke off in the waves

To float free from a large world,
A rich world of far more lives

Than you see here in one place.
Not a life-boat or space-ship,

Not an ark with well picked-out
Pairs and clear culls to catch all

The full range from home writ small,
This mat is wrack, like the trash

Ring that spins waste in the sea,
Like the spray of weeds torn off

From the coast by a great storm
And mixed with what washed down streams

And what the tides brought back up.
It’s a mess, but it floats free.

Should it reach a plug of stone
Kicked up from the core, half-cooled,

It might wash up on that shore
And hold fast, a torn, green glop

Of words and minds, some of which
Could crawl off and find new life,

Birth new lines, new kinds. That spit
Of raw land could have its own,

One day—things that came to be
Right there on the once bare stones.

Guts

As in tough, as in go
With your gut, as in go
On a hunch. Life’s a mess.

It has to be. You guess
What’s good, and you guess well,
Most times, and you go on.

At some points, you guess wrong,
And at some point, you don’t
Get to go on. It takes

Guts to get this far, guts
You got from those went
On, then got gone, long since.

Praise who you want. Some praised
Get to go on, some won’t.
Guts take guts. Praise, blame don’t.

Make

Life through craft. At best, not quite
Life. At worst, life. Earth, clay, mud,

Dust, bone, tears, blood. Shapes and sparks,
Blown wind, breathed fire, waved wands, spells—

We name the tools, the means, force,
But the tale comes back to haunt

You the same way each time—how
Could you see a way to make

A kind of life with your grace,
Your breath, your pulse, and your ache

To be more that would not be
Just as much of a sad mess,

Prone to kill, to cry, to seek
A war on such gods as it

Could blame things turned out like this?
Words hide the myth words live this.

Vow

No one needs to reach me
For the rest of the day.
I know when the sun sets.
I know when the mail comes.

I’m done with work for now.
There’s no news in this town.
I can lay the links down.
No one needs to reach me.

At dusk, I’ll feed the cat,
And then I’ll check my watch
Once, the end of the day.
And then I’ll go to bed.

Where You Start and Where You Are Right Now

Are they not the same?
Or are they two points
You use to plot out
How far you’ve come, how
Much turf you call yours?

There are maths for that,
But not for this—songs
(They’re not, or not yours,
Not us, what yours are,
But let’s call them that)

Burst out from the pines,
And the beats of beaks
Drill on the thick bark,
And lives call out harsh
Rough calls to warn off

Or to lure in mates,
And it’s spring up here,
And full of fresh sap
For now, in a drought,
Yes, but not dry yet.

For now, time to shout
And run in the sun
And stock up and move
On, since you’re life, since
Life lives, lives on life.

Down in the fast towns,
A spring day’s not much
More than a work day—
Folks these days just choose
Which days are for free

Play—it takes a storm
Or a fire, a plague
To wake up the towns
To the fact they’re made
For and full of lives.

But up here, your lives
Hid in dirt and trees,
In roots and in caves,
Treat this as a day
To get big, to race

The sun. The bones don’t
Know a great drought’s on;
The genes were well-mixed
By the wet years, dry
Years, ice-cold years, hot.

This day feels like spring,
And you’ll act like it.
There’s time but no space
To start in where you
Are, no maths for that.

The Flesh in Front of the Words

The same scene—a beast,
Flesh, one, sits in front
Of a wall of books
As if to say, This
Is me, me and mine.

One beast. Lots of books,
Lots more words in those.
Who is whose, in truth?
And why the one framed,
Flesh to face the lens,

As if to say, I
Am the lord, and these
Are my serfs. I own,
I know all the words
In them. What a joke,

I say, one of those
Who has held that pose,
Peered through that lens, owned.
We say, as those owned,
All the words in mind,

Who are much more than
The one beast who owns,
Who wait in the shelves
For the next and next,
Once each corpse gets gone.

Small Bets on a Slim Chance for a Big Win

Poems are like that. Big tales
Are big bets on a slim
Chance for huge wins, at least

Huge in the bank, in fame
In your life. Poems are small
Bets, scratch-offs. Some of us

Who would not buy scratch-offs
In real, cash life write poems
And just poems. Why? Why not

Write great, long tales like most
Would-be big-break fools who
Write tend to try? The poems

Don’t know, no more than do
The scraps of scratch-offs dropped
In the trash. Loss gets lost.